Further Reading

For better or worse, Apple's new language lets you do things your way.

This is a departure for Apple in a couple of ways—first, Xcode betas have heretofore been available to paying OS X or iOS developers only. The membership is just $99 a year, but it's still a paywall that has separated developers from the general public up until now. Along with the upcoming Yosemite public beta and the Beta Seed program, Apple is offering enthusiasts and developers access to more and more of its software before it's officially ready for public consumption.

Second, Apple engineers usually don't get to talk about what they're doing. Apple's official communication comes from its PR department, from various executives giving carefully controlled interviews, or from executives standing up on a stage in front of anyone who wants to stream it. The single post on the blog now doesn't go into detail about much of anything, really, but there's a chance the site could be a valuable source of information going forward.

The Xcode 6 beta will run on any computer with Mavericks or a Yosemite beta installed. Developers looking to learn more about Swift before they start coding can download the reference guide for the language from the iBooks store for free.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.